


A Regular Song and Dance

by corialis



Category: Constantine (2005)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-14
Updated: 2012-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-31 04:04:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/339693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corialis/pseuds/corialis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three meetings of some consequence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Regular Song and Dance

**Author's Note:**

> For Yuletide 2006, for Becky_H. With great thanks to prodigy and a minor apology to Dostoevsky.

It was dusk when John Constantine first met Midnite.  
  
This, upon reflection, was fitting, for John dealt in a somewhat grey area, and the rain not-quite-falling on the smoggy Los Angeles streets as the sun's faint haze made one last day's attempt at breaking through the clouds made the description, if not entirely a metaphorical one, at least somewhat literal. Midnite, at the time, did not.  
  
There had been a bit of confusion regarding precisely which end of a just-performed exorcism John was on.  
  
After the smoke and brimstone-scented air started to clear, Midnite pulled John to his feet, white teeth gleaming in a rueful sort of smile he hasn't had for years now, with a then-heavily-accented apology and the offer of a drink.  
  
John accepted. The rest is a bit too between the lines to qualify as history, but it is there all the same.  
  
If circumstances were different and meeting time moved to now but the situation itself unchanged, John Constantine would probably be dead.  
  
Things change.  
  
\---  
  
It is only because it is absolutely necessary that John is stepping off the darkening streets and into this bar seeking out Gabriel again; angels, even fallen ones, can have their uses, and he would not be doing this were he not desperate, much as he lets himself enjoy the occasional taste of schadenfreude.  
  
Tonight John pushes past Midnite's bouncer as usual, for where better to look than this playground of the in-between, muttering a cursory "two dolphins on a cloud," and he can already feel the beat of the music pounding in his bones.  
  
Some nights, Lucifer comes here to play piano.  
  
John has been here for some of those, lights turned down and a candle flickering atop the baby grand. Lucifer is, if nothing else, the possessor of the devil's own talent, and the bar can seem subdued rather than its usual frantic if he so chooses.  
  
This is not one of those nights. The bass of the music throbs like a heartbeat as he makes his way through the writhing just-barely-human masses, angels and demons and others as they undulate against and around and through each other. Red light flashes off of bared fangs and John brushes a feather that smells of sulfur off his shoulder as he makes his way to the bar.  
  
A being he doesn't recognize slides towards him, tight skin and tighter clothes as he feels an arm snake around him and an overheated body pressing him back against the smoothed-down grain of the bar.  
  
"The famous John Constantine," the androgyne with yellow eyes hisses, with just a flick of tongue against his ear, light enough to almost dismiss but deliberate enough not to. "Let me buy you a drink."  
  
He pushes away. "No thanks."  
  
He's never really been one for dancing.  
  
And particularly not now, when he spots a shock of red-blonde hair falling over a bared, pale shoulder a few feet further down.  
  
John Constantine can sidle with the best of them and he sides up to this new being, smirk playing slightly on the corners of his lips. "I'll have a Fallen Angel," he says to the bartender, as a pair of eyes to his left jerks up to meet his, startled before sliding into a hateful glare.  
  
"You think you're funny, don't you."  
  
"Hello, Gabriel." This time, it's almost a smile.  
  
"I never particularly wanted to be ordinary," Gabriel says with something of a smirk and something of sadness, but his angry eyes belie them both. "Never wanted to be a fat old woman lighting candles at God's shrine like some sort of Russian's concept of the devil."  
  
"I think you're retaining your girlish figure just fine," John allows himself a full smirk this time. "What does this have to do with me?"  
  
"Well, you are responsible for my being this way. But then, maybe you're here to tell me we should try to be friends, put the past behind us?"  
  
"Generally I try to avoid making friends who want to send all my other friends through what could be referred to as Hell on earth."  
  
"Maybe not, then. You know, you'll never get into Heaven if you don't start practicing some of that Christlike forgiveness. What do you want?"  
  
The obvious frustration in Gabriel's voice almost prompts another smile. Despite his need for cooperation he has to indulge the occasional amusement. "I'm not too worried right now. Though I suppose that should be something on your mind as much as mine if you ever want God to take you back."  
  
Gabriel glares again. "You're not here to make small talk or lecture me on my Christian," he nearly spits the word, "duties."  
  
Shrug. "Maybe. How's the world treating you these days?"  
  
"In a decidedly ungodly fashion," is the reply, accompanied by an almost bereft expression. "Is this what life is?" Gabriel asks, looking for a moment oddly vulnerable.  
  
The light changes and what could have casually passed for naivete is nothing but calculation. "All of it? This gaping hole caused by absence of the Creator? It's no wonder you humans have places like this of your own, as though inebriation and a warm body were enough to make you forget about your paltry existences."  
  
John smiles, sharp, even though nothing is funny.  
  
"I suppose," he says, low and still with vestiges of his smoker's rasp, "some of it's fun, too."  
  
\---  
  
It's raining the first time John Constantine realizes Lucifer is still stalking him, and he isn't quite as unnerved as someone being followed by the devil normally would be.  
  
Perhaps "stalking" is the wrong word. "Watching," maybe. "Occasionally dropping in on to observe from a distance, just casually, you know, having a bit of fun."  
  
He supposes he shouldn't be too surprised. Had their roles been reversed, he'd be throwing every ounce of demonic temptation he could at himself. As such he's succumbing to enough temptation without Lucifer's influence. He was never quite cut out for martyrdom.  
  
Usually he would dismiss it as paranoia, but he's been doing what he does for too long to dismiss anything. He thought he was going crazy for a while, long ago, but that was before he knew that everyone else was just blind.  
  
He remembers missing a class once in high school - English - and when he borrowed the notes of the cute girl who sat diagonal from him they merely said that Sylvia Plath "went crazy, killed self at 31."  
  
John knows that going mad is nothing as simple as one neat, black-pen bullet point on blue-lined paper.  
  
But this is not paranoia talking, as Lucifer smiles unctuously and waves at him from underneath his white umbrella across the street. John gives him a cursory middle finger, prompting a scandalized expression and a few yelled obscenities from the old woman to the devil's left, as he enters a small, dusty bookstore.  
  
When he leaves, empty-handed and frustrated, it's almost done raining but not quite. The drizzle being spit from the sky is cold on his overheated neck and running down into his eyes, and Lucifer is gone. His jacket hangs heavy and damp off his shoulders and for a moment he considers just going home.  
  
He pulls out a cigarette and leans against the wall, flicks the Zippo that spent a month gathering dust before nicotine's siren call drew him back, and lights up.  
  
Maybe he'll make one more stop.


End file.
